HACKERS who targeted Downing Street and the Foreign Office may be looking for intelligence on Ukraine to pass on to Russia, a security expert has claimed.
Robert Oulds, executive director of the human rights think-tank Impact International, said that hackers based in the United Arab Emirates may have been fishing for intelligence on Britain’s role in supporting Ukraine.
He was speaking after it was revealed that the UAE is believed to be behind an attack with a spyware program called Pegasus which targeted devices in Downing Street and the Foreign Office.
Mr Oulds told GB News that Russia may have been the ultimate beneficiary of intelligence gained during the attack as the UAE has become a base for Russian oligarchs looking to sidestep sanctions imposed following the invasion of Ukraine.
“This is not surprising. The UAE has recently been moving very closely towards China, and also Russia.
“Indeed, it has become a home for Russians oligarchs avoiding the sanctions.
“The financial centre based in Dubai is actually the main centre it seems for channelling Russian funds around the sanctions that [the West] is trying to impose on them to stop the war in Ukraine and try and bring peace and stop the invasion.”
He made his comments during We Need To Talk About with Alex Phillips on GB News this afternoon.
Mr Oulds said: “It is very alarming that the UAE is hacking Prime Minister Johnson’s number 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office given their efforts to try and resolve the situation that’s currently taking place there.
“This is absolutely massive national security that has global implications.
“And we’ve seen how recently the United Arab Emirates and DP World sacked so many people who work for P&O Ferries, and then imported their economic model., one of cheap labour, of dismissing regular staff, replacing them with short term agency staff.”
He added: “This has absolutely an affront and they’ve been imposing on this country and they are compounding it now with these security breaches and my organisation Impact International has highlighted these risks, we’ve highlighted these concerns.
“We’ve been showing how the United Arab Emirates has been this safe haven for Russian money – that is actually deeply concerning, and we should be very worried and should take it very seriously.”
